Online Dating Guide » dating articles

The Loneliest Days of the Week

Brad — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:00:46 +0000

When I first started providing dating advice, I had assumed that I would have more visitors to my site on the weekends. My thinking was that people would be reminded of being single the most on the weekends and therefore would be looking to solve that problem then. Well, that theory turned out to be incorrect – at least as far as my site statistics are concerned. For as long as I’ve been tracking the traffic to my site I have actually seen consistent spikes in traffic on Sundays and Mondays. Below is a graph that shows 6 weeks of traffic for my site with Sundays being represented by the red line:

Sundays are on the red lines and as you can see, when Sundays aren’t the busiest day of the week, Mondays are.

But What Does This Mean for Singles?

It turns out that people are looking for dating advice the most after the weekend has ended (well, at least the people coming to my site). Sundays and Mondays are easily my most visited days. But what does all this mean for singles that are online dating?

The truth is it may not mean much, however, these numbers would suggest that many people are the most frustrated with their single life early in the week. If that’s true, it might be most beneficial to send extra emails or other communication during Sundays and Mondays. The thought here is that on these days people are most motivated to solve their dating life “problem” and thus may be more open and interested in communicating.

Now my web site traffic only makes up a small portion of the total online dating advice searching occurring each week but after months of watching this pattern happen over and over again, I have to believe that other internet dating sites see a similar pattern. This would actually probably be best answered by OKCupid since they are the primary source for online dating statistics but I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw the same results as I am.

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Online Dating Questions: FAQ

Brad — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:00:23 +0000

Over the last few years, I’ve answered many online dating questions. In this post, I’m going to keep a collection of my favorite posts among them. If you have an online dating question that I’ve not answered at this site please feel free to contact me.

If you’re looking for good first date questions, check out this article instead: First Date Questions

Online Dating Questions:
Why Do Men Ignore What I Require In My Dating Profile?
Match.com vs eHarmony: Which Is The Best Dating Service?
How Does eHarmony Work?
How Does Match.com Work?
Is It Normal To Try Online Dating Several Times?
What Is A Good User Name For An Online Dating Services?
Match.com Questions And Answers?
Is The Chemistry.com Free Trial Worth It?
Should Men Consider Dating Older Women?
What Is The Price Of Chemistry.com Subscriptions?
Can You Get A Second Chance After A Bad First Date?
Who Should Pay On The First Date?
Is Silence Rejection With Online Dating?
eHarmony Is Giving Me No Matches
Should I Lose Weight Before Dating Online?
New To Dating Online: Where Should I Start?
Does Your Dating Profile Photo Say What You Think It Does?
If I Am Shy Should I Mention It In My Online Dating Profile?
What Is The Price Of Eharmony Subscriptions?
Do Cheesy Pick Up Lines Really Work?
Are Niche Dating Sites Worth My Time Or Money?
Why Are People Rejected By eHarmony?
Should I Email Again If My First Gets No Response?
When Should I Give My Phone Number?
Why Desperation Is So Unattractive?
Dating Services How Long Should I Sign Up For?
Is Online Dating Worth It?
Is Blank A Good Topic For A First Date Conversations?

Why Do Men Ignore What I Require In My Dating Profile?
This question is in regards to why men continue to contact women when those men are clearly not what the woman’s profiles states that she is looking for. This is very frustrating for these women who take the time to create a profile that describes exactly what they are looking for only to have the profile entirely ignored (well, excluding their photo).

Match.com vs eHarmony: Which Is The Best Dating Service?
A comparison of eHarmony and Match.com to identify which dating service is best for your personal situation. Neither service is always a better choice than the other but your conditions can make one of the two be the preferred service.

How Does eHarmony Work?
Detailed information on signing up and using the dating service eHarmony. Features are covered in details and advice on using the service is also given.

How Does Match.com Work?
Covering how Match.com works with advice on profiles, signing up and additional features at the service.

Is It Normal To Try Online Dating Several Times?
Many people try online dating, give up and then find themselves coming back to try online dating again. Is this normal?

What Is A Good User Name For An Online Dating Services?
Covering the process of selecting your user name at a dating service. The user name is not very important but there are a few rules you should follow.

Match.com Questions And Answers?
There are many general frequently asked questions about Match.com and many of these questions are answered here.

Is The Chemistry.com Free Trial Worth It?
Chemistyr.com offers a free trial but is the trial worth it? The answer to that depends on what you’re looking to get out of your free trial…

Should Men Consider Dating Older Women?
Covering an article from OKCupid that makes an argument using statistics that suggests men should consider dating older women.

What Is The Price Of Chemistry.com Subscriptions?
Covering the pricing of Chemsitry.com and some other details on signing up at the dating site.

Can You Get A Second Chance After A Bad First Date?
If you have a bad first date, is there any way to recover and have a second date? Bad first dates are difficult to get past but there are some steps you can take to help your situation.

Who Should Pay On The First Date?
At one time, this question may have not even been asked. However, times change and many men (and some women) find themselves wondering: who does pay on a first date?

Is Silence Rejection With Online Dating?
Often after contacting people for the first time on a dating service, there is never a response. Is this lack of response a rejection?

eharmony Is Giving Me No Matches
I’ve signed up for eHarmony but they’re not giving me any matches! What gives?

Should I Lose Weight Before Dating Online?
Should losing weight (or any other personal change) be a requirement before someone signs up for an online dating service?

New To Dating Online: Where Should I Start?
How should someone brand new to online dating approaching beginning this process?

Does Your Dating Profile Photo Say What You Think It Does?
Many times we select our profile photo and believe that it sends one message when it actually tells the people viewing it a very different story. Is your photo at risk for this problem?

If I Am Shy Should I Mention It In My Online Dating Profile?
Should a shy person point out this quality in their dating profile? Sometimes this may be the best approach but often it is not. Find out why.

What Is The Price Of Eharmony Subscriptions?
Discussing the pricing model of eHarmony along with some promotions available at the service.

Do Cheesy Pick Up Lines Really Work?
Do bad pick-up lines really work or are they just a great way to embarrass yourself?

Are Niche Dating Sites Worth My Time Or Money?
Niche dating sites have far fewer members than the big dating sites so this means they must be less valuable, right? Not always!

Why Are People Rejected By eHarmony?
I was rejected by eHarmony! Why would this happen? Is there anything someone can do if they’ve been rejected by the service?

Should I Email Again If My First Gets No Response?
If you contact someone for the first time but they don’t reply, is there any hope of getting a response by sending another email?

When Should I Give My Phone Number?
Should phone numbers be exchanged when dating online and, if so, when should this be happening?

Why Desperation Is So Unattractive?
A discussion of desperation and why this attitude is so unattractive. Displaying this quality is often one of the most damaging things you could do for your dating life.

Dating Services How Long Should I Sign Up For?
What is the best amount of time to sign up for at a dating service? The longer plans cost less in the long run but does this make these plans the best choice?

Is Online Dating Worth It?
Is online dating worth the time and/or money that it requires? Arguments on why online dating is not worth it are examined.

Is [Blank] A Good Topic For A First Date Conversations?
Many conversations are considered off limits on a first date while others are considered fair to ask. How do you decide which is which?

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5 Love Languages: Learn Your Language

Brad — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:00:09 +0000

A few months ago I reviewed The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and as I mentioned in that post, I thought the book was great. I know that my relationship with my wife has been improved because of it.

Recently, I was contacted the publisher of this book and they wanted to let me know about their online test. This will allow anyone to quickly discover which love language is their most dominant. Discovering your love language is interesting but remember that learning the love language of your partner is at least as important! I remember that I wasn’t surprised by my love language but I was surprised by my wife’s.

This test will ask questions about you “husband” or your “wife” but just fill that in with “the person you are dating” or “when you are married…”. I know most of my visitors are still single but the test will still work fine! The test requests your email but you can take it without giving it. I provided my email when taking the test and all they’ve sent me so far is my results so I think it’s pretty safe to provide it. That said, you can get your results without doing so.

Here’s the test:

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Should Men Consider Dating Older Women?

Brad — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:00:57 +0000

I’m really learning to love OKCupid more every day. As I’ve written here in the past, it is my recommended free dating service. Aside from offering a great free dating option, they’re the only service that offers substantial statistics on the dating habits of their members.

In some ways I believe these statistics aren’t going to tell the whole story as I believe the type of clientele will differ from service to service. As an example, this article I’m about to discuss shows how online dating drops off at older ages…at OKCupid. Sites like eHarmony have been seeing a boom in older age groups so I’m not sure the stats are universal. Still, they’re providing more information in a week than any other dating service provides in a year. In some ways, they’re writing the book on online dating statistics. Most articles I’ve seen in the last 6 months, whether it’s a major publication or a blog like mine, ends up pointing back to OKCupid.

The most recent article that caught my attention is A Case For An Older Woman. It’s a really long article but for anyone interested in dating statistics, it’s a great read. What the article points out is that as men grow older, they are more willing to date relatively younger women. I suspect most of us don’t need a chart to tell us this but here’s theirs anyway:

The article points out that men actually lie about the age range they’re willing to date. Men will concentrate on the low-bound of their age preferences and will actively contact women younger than their specified youngest preferable age. The desirability for women actually peaks at 21! Perhaps not shocking but it is young considering the age span dating at the site. The article then moves into its sales pitch on why men should be concentrating on dating older women arguing based on sex, attitude and looks. It then makes a pretty (no pun intended) good case by showing women of different ages in same attractiveness percentile.

I actually work with statistics for a living so I know you can make them say just about anything you want (hence my hesitation when dealing with OKCupid statistics, while at the same time loving that they provide said statistics). Even with that knowledge, I do think the article makes a good argument. One of the biggest self-imposed handicaps I see when talking to singles is that they refuse to contact all but a very small set of people. For men, this article makes a pretty good point that there is too much concentration on age and that if guys would just try talking to some different women they might be amazed at how much they would like those women.

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Twitter To Replace Dating Services?

Brad — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:00:02 +0000

This article asks the question: Can Twitter replace online dating sites? My first thought to this prior to reading the article was: weren’t people asking this same question about MySpace a few years ago? As I had mentioned back then, people also meet in grocery stores but that doesn’t mean grocery stores are going to replace bars, clubs or singles events. And so my first thought to this question was a resounding “No”.

However, after reading the article I’ll say that the author makes some good points. The argument seems to be that heavy users of Twitter (referred to as Twitter addicts in the article) will be better served by meeting people on Twitter itself and I can agree with that. However, that’s a lot different than suggesting Twitter would replace online dating altogether. That would be like saying World of Warcraft is going to replace online dating. Sure, there are millions of people playing and, sure, I have actual friends who have married after meeting in-game but it hardly has the reach to suggest it’s going to replace online dating…or even dent it.

And my opinion is that Twitter is exactly the same. The casual Twitter user will be better served by a real dating service but the Twitter “addict” will likely be better served by Twitter itself. If the question had been phrased something like “Can Twitter replace online dating sites for its most faithful users?”, the article makes a good argument that the answer to that is “Yes”.

On that note, if you love Twitter be sure to check out the article – it might give you some great ideas. On the other hand, if you’re a casual Twitter user like me, don’t expect much to change in the online dating world for you.

Update: LemonDrop has an article with more thoughts regarding dating and Twitter (apparently it’s called Flittering?).

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Tips for Dating More Than One Person at a Time

Brad — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:00:40 +0000

As I lay out in my online dating guide, I think one approach that should be taken with online dating is to date as many people as as you can simultaneously. There are many reasons for this such as gaining confidence and just improving your odds by the number of people you are meeting. However, I don’t want to go over all of that again here.

Instead, I wanted to direct my readers to an article at Dating Advice From A Girl called How to Date More than One Person without being a Player. One problem with dating many people at the same time is that you do run the risk of coming off as a “player”. At the very least, if you’re not open you run the risk of having some of the people you meet have their feelings hurt.

I think I eventually learned to follow all these rules by trial and error. The only rule laid out that I didn’t follow was the rule about talking about your other dates. I was willing to talk about dates I had had in the past if I was no longer seeing that person just because sharing dating stories helped more than a few of my dates get off the ground. Sometimes in those first few minutes when you’re still measuring each other under a microscope a conversation about bad dates or just about online dating experiences, good or bad, can really help both people get out of investigation-mode and into converstation-mode. Still, the arguments made are solid and you’ll need to decide for yourself what’s off the table.

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Dating News: Profile Lies, Age Issues and a Widowed Mom

Brad — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:00:14 +0000

Little White Profile Lies
This Washington Post article discusses some of the most common lies in dating profiles: height and weight. It also states that 8 out of 10 profiles have some type of lie in it. When I was dating online I had plenty of first dates but only one where the woman I met had blatantly lied about her appearance…so if 80% of people are lying I think most of those lies must be pretty small, at least based on my experience. The article ends by suggesting the lying will lessen as dating profiles become tied more closely to social networks. An interesting thought although I’m not convinced that today’s singles want to tie their online dating life to their Facebook account (at least not openly).

Avoiding Hang Up on Age
This article discusses the increasingly popularity of “cougar” dating. The author runs a dating agency and reveals some insight into how many individuals they help are unwilling to meet people significantly older than themselves. He summed this issue up well in the article:

Yes, many guys in their 20s love to meet cougars in bars and go home with them for the night (and perhaps several other nights down the road). However, when those same guys reach the point in their lives when they want to settle down, get married, and start a family, they almost always prefer meeting women their own age or younger.

It’s also interesting to see how he has seen an increasing trend in singles looking to date people significantly younger than themselves.

A Widowed Mom Looks For Online Dating Advice
A woman looks for advice on using online dating after unexpectedly losing her husband. She has questions like if she should include the situation she’s found herself in or if she should talk about her child. The article is interesting but the advice is rather extreme. I do think you should list if you have children, although not specifics about your kids. The article uses one example out of literally millions to make the case that just listing having children will result in their abuse. Being cautious is recommended but in the article’s example the man actually married the woman to get to her children. My thought is that if some sicko is committed enough to marry a woman to get to her kids he would also be committed enough to put the time in to find out if she has kids in the first place. Still, it’s good to read as many opinions as possible and since I don’t have children yet I may not be the best guy to weigh in on this one. Still, were it me I would list having children but leave out any details.

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Tips on Finding the Man or Woman of Your Dreams

Brad — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:00:43 +0000

As I am frequent to complain about, finding really good dating advice can be difficult. I’ve found some good sources and I try to list them as I find them here. However far, far too many sites offer the “how to seduce a woman” type of advice that really isn’t helping anyone (excluding whoever is selling the advice, and there is almost always a price). This is the type of dating advice that discourages singles more than it helps them and it’s exactly the kind of advice that caused me to write a recent article with tips on taking advice.

I’m getting off topic though because today I want to talk about some great advice, not bad advice. This great relationship advice comes from ZenCollegeLife.com and describes how to find the guy or girl of your dreams. I know that sounds like a tall order and while taking the advice given is no guarantee to truly lead you to meeting your dream person, it does provide excellent ways to start that process. It’s interesting that this site, which isn’t devoted to dating advice at all, gives far better advice than many of the sites that allege to be providing helpful dating advice.

photo by DavidChief

The article is written for the college aged individuals but the advice given in most cases will be helpful universally. Some of the advice isn’t horribly useful (I’ve already covered how advice like “Be Brave” really isn’t helping anyone) but the good far outweighs the bad. One area that I liked is the concentration paid to having the right attidude when searching for the special someone, such as having real expections and being smart with your emotions. Overall a really great read and highly recommended even if you feel you’re already on the right track.

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An Internet Scammer Speaks

Brad — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:00:08 +0000

A few months ago I wrote a series of articles on avoiding online dating scams. One of the scams I discussed was the 419 scam. This involves the scammer convincing their target to send them money for one reason or another. With online dating it will often be the scam will often involve the person you are communicating with needing financial help for a troubling situation or because they want to meet you. For a recent example of this, check out this recent Wall Street Journal article that discusses men being swindled on millionaire dating sites. From that article:

One Austin, Texas, man sent the fraudster more than $10,000 after “Bree” said via email and phone conversations that she was having financial difficulties. Yes, it can be that easy.

As I emphasized in my series, any time money comes into the picture you need to be suspicious.

At any rate, back to the main reason for this post. An article has been posted over at Scam Detectives that includes an interview of a man who was running some of the 419 scams out of Nigeria (a very popular country for this type of scam). The article is an interesting read as it’s eye opening to see where these scammers are coming from. As the scammer reported, they would get very few responses:

Maybe 9 or 10 out of every thousand emails. Then maybe 1 out of every 20 replies would lead to us getting money out of the victim in the end.

So 1 out of every 2,000 people they contact is falling for their tricks. That may seem like bad odds but as is revealed in the article, it was enough that the scammer was living the good life (including his own BMW!). For anyone actively participating in online activities, dating or otherwise, it’s a good idea to keep yourself in the know on how scams are being perpetrated. I’d recommend reading all of the available parts to this interview.

Also, note that in the WSJ article the scammer was actually able to disguise his voice as a woman’s before asking for money. Remember: never send money when online dating…it’s a very bad sign if someone asks you for any money at all. Always keep this in mind whether you’ve heard “her” voice or not.

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Men Get Stupid When Talking To Beautiful Women

Brad — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:00:52 +0000

If you’re a man and you’ve ever been frustrated by the fact that you fall apart socially around beautiful women, it’s not just you. According to a study discussed in the Telegraph, studies have shown that men actually do lose much of their ability to think and reason when around pretty women:

The research shows men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive.

Researchers who carried out the study, published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, think the reason may be that men use up so much of their brain function or ‘cognitive resources’ trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks.

As the article later points out, women weren’t affected at all talking to attractive men as they are looking for other attributes such as youth, wealth and kindness. I guess the real question for men would be, what can help a man turn off this ‘reproductivity focus’ that turns his brain to mush? I have a few thoughts on this:

When one of my friends would date a beautiful woman, I never felt those flustered feelings this article describes because I knew I wouldn’t date her (even were she to pursue me). If you could artificially convince yourself that you shouldn’t date a woman (even though you could), it might help.
When I had many first dates scheduled while dating online, I think my ‘reproductivity focus’ was less severe or even absent because I had so many other possibilities on the horizon. With this in mind, it would seem reasonable to suggest that the dating opportunities you have the more ’stupid’ you’ll be around
these pretty women. I know this was true for me.

I can’t offer much advice for accomplishing the first bullet but I cover the second in great detail in my online dating guide. While us guys are more controlled by our instincts than we would care to admit, I believe there are some things you can do to improve your chances even with these forces working against us.

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